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Ethical Justifications for Voluntary Active Euthanasia

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Ethical Justifications for Voluntary Active Euthanasia ETHICAL JUSTIFICATIONS FOR VOLUNTARY ACTIVE EUTHANASIA Bernadette Spina* The topic of euthanasia gives rise to a host of ethical questions including those regarding the quality of life, beneficence, and the responsibilities of physicians toward their patients. While there are many kinds of cases in which euthanasia may be considered, such as those involving severely handicapped newborns and patients with debilitating but not fatal conditions, this paper focuses on the situation of late-state terminally ill patients who are suffering and want active euthanasia as an option for ending their pain. This paper explains why, under such circumstances, voluntary active euthanasia may be ethically justified. Active and passive euthanasia are generally thought of as two separate phenomena, with the first involving the commission of an act that brings about death, and the second involving the omission of treatment that would prolong life.47' In addition to active and passive euthanasia, there is a third approach to euthanasia some view as a separate and distinct category. This approach is referred to as physician-assisted suicide. Physician-assisted suicide is similar to active euthanasia in that it involves a direct act intended to cause a patient's death. In active euthanasia, a doctor performs the act intended to cause death, while in physician- assisted suicide, the patient performs the final act. ACTIVE EUTHANASIA: SUICIDE OR HOMICIDE? One of the primary concerns about active euthanasia is that it involves a direct act by a person other than the patient. This being true, opponents to active euthanasia view voluntary euthanasia as murder rather than as suicide. Particular controversy exists over the issue of euthanasia in health care settings where doctors help consenting patients to die. Rather than being viewed as murder, however, proponents of euthanasia describe it as "suicide through the agency of another." 472 * Bernadette Spina is a student at the University of Pennsylvania where she participates in research at the University's Center for Bioethics. 4 7 1 BRENDAN MINOGUE, BIOETHICS: A COMMITTEE APPROACH 6 (1996). 472 ROBERT N. WENNBERG, TERMINAL CHOICE: EUTHANASIA, SUICIDE, AND THE RIGHT TO DIE 19 (1989). "[J]ust as one can commit a homicide or murder through the agency of another, so one can commit suicide through the agency of another."473 It can be argued that suicide occurs whenever a person intends to die, regardless of whether he performs the suicidal act himself or has another perform it for him.47 4 Three conditions must be met for an act to be defined as a suicide.475 First, "[t]he action must, with reasonable certainty, lead to the death of the person engaging in it."476 Second, "it must be known to the actor that his death would be a virtual certainty were he to engage in that act."477 Third, "[t]he actor must engage in that action for the express purpose of bringing about his own death., 478 According to this definition then, voluntary active euthanasia, which satisfies all three of these conditions, qualifies as suicide, and should not be considered a form of murder. NONMALEFICENCE Another, more complex, issue raised by the question of euthanasia in a health care setting is the question as to exactly what a physician's responsibility is toward a patient who wants to die. In effect, the question becomes that of what creates the doctor's duty to help such a patient end his life. An important ethical principle that, applied to biomedical ethics, can be used to justify a doctor's role in euthanasia is nonmaleficence. The principle of nonmaleficence asserts that "a doctor ought not to 479 inflict evil or harm or bring his patients into the risk of evil or harm." Because of the way technology has advanced the practice of medicine, doctors today are able to provide a host of life-prolonging treatments that were previously unimaginable. Using these treatments, however, is not always the best way to serve the patient's interests. For example, using respirators and feeding tubes, physicians have the ability to keep patients in persistent vegetative state (PVS) alive for an indefinite amount of time. Many treatments available through modem medical technology successfully sustain life, but in fact reduce the quality of life led by the patient without ultimately providing a cure. Modem medical technology, turns "prolongation of life into prolongation of dying." 480 Patients who receive treatments that take a tremendous physical toll upon them, 473 Id. 4 7 4 Id. at 22. 475 EIKE-HENNER W. LUGE, THE PRACTICE OF DEATH 103 (1975). 476 Id. 477 Id. 478 Id. 479 Dieter Giesen, Dilemmas at Life's End. A Comparative Legal Perspective, in EUTHANASIA EXAMINED 202 (John Keown, ed., 1995). 480 JERRY B. WILSON, DEATH BY DECISION: THE MEDICAL, MORAL, AND LEGAL DILEMMAS OF EUTHANASIA 58 (1975). treatments which neither adequately combat the pain of their conditions nor provide a cure, simply endure a prolonged period of pain and suffering. Similarly, patients who decide to withdraw such treatment but who do not have the option of euthanasia are left to die in perhaps even more excruciating pain because of the extra toll that the combined effects of their illnesses and past treatments take upon them. Thus, medical interventions that prolong life, either right up to the time of death or to a point where the patient is left to suffer in a horribly decrepit state, clearly do the patient more harm than good. In both cases, the doctor is in a position to end the patient's suffering, but instead prolongs it, thereby causing more harm to the patient. While one view of the principle of nonmaleficence calls for doctors to preserve their patients' lives regardless of the quality of those lives, another view holds that the medical interventions cause the true harm to the patient through prolonged or more 481 intense suffering. BENEFICENCE Another principle justifying voluntary active euthanasia is beneficence, the complement of nonmaleficence. Beneficence requires4 8a2 doctor to act in ways that best promote the welfare of his patients. However, there is controversy over what courses of action a doctor should take to properly fulfill this duty. While some assert that beneficence requires a doctor to preserve life no matter what the cost, others argue that a patient's interests are best served by a doctor who respects the patient's autonomy, is sensitive to the pain he is suffering, and is willing to take action to end that pain. In the case of a terminally ill patient, suffering uncontrollable pain and asking for an end to his life, it seems that the most helpful act would be to end his life in a merciful way. In such a case, death is imminent, and the doctor has two choices remaining: let the disease take its course or end the patient's life. While the first option achieves nothing except for prolonging the patient's suffering and allowing him a painful death, the second clearly fulfills the doctor's obligation of beneficence by acting to end the patient's pain and making his inevitable death a little easier. THE HIPPOCRATIC OATH The principles of beneficence and nonmaleficence provide important perspectives from which to view the physician's role in euthanasia. They 481 See DAVID C. THOMASMA & GLENN C. GRABER, EUTHANASIA: TOWARD AN ETHICAL AND SOCIAL POLICY 3 (1990). 4 82 See TOM L. BEAUCHAMP & JAMES F. CHILDRESS, PRINCIPLES OF BIOMEDICAL ETHICS 259 (1994). show how, in certain situations, ending a patient's life is the best thing that a doctor can do to help that patient. Still, "[s]ome people find it especially difficult to accept the idea of physicians engaging in active euthanasia. Doctors, they remind us, are dedicated to protecting and preserving life... .Thus we should not expect them to kill, regardless of whatever might be right for the rest of us." 483 That is to say that some people see mercy killing as actually being "incompatible" with a doctor's role.484 One reason for this feeling may be that people see doctors as 4having85 pledged to only preserve life when they took the Hippocratic Oath. The Hippocratic Oath does not contain any specific statement obliging doctors to preserve life at all costs.486 The Oath does, however, provide expressions of both beneficence and nonmaleficence: "I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and judgment, but I will never use it to injure or wrong them."487 A statement like this is in no way a commitment to prolong life when, in some circumstances, helping to bring a terminally ill patient's life to a faster and less painful end is the best thing that a doctor can do to "help the sick" and not "injure or wrong them."488 The Oath is subject to much interpretation, especially when one considers the time and context in which it was written. The opening statement, "I swear by Apollo Physician and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panaceia. .," demonstrates that the Oath cannot be taken in a literal sense. 489 In addition, it would hardly be appropriate for a doctor today to be bound by any set of rules written without a conception of the problems 490 faced in the practice of modem medicine. QUALITY OF LIFE Physicians who practice active euthanasia may offend opponents of the practice who believe that human life is sacred and killing is morally wrong. 491 These absolutes are simplistic and ignore the complex issues that arise when a patient is irredeemably ill and would rather die than continue suffering. When a patient reaches a point where his physical condition keeps him from deriving pleasure from anything around him (or in the case of persistent vegetative state, from experiencing anything 483 JAMES RACHELS, THE END OF LIFE: THE MORALITY OF EUTHANASIA 118 (1986).
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